View source for Volume XI of 'Races of Avendar'

                               THE CHAJA
                   by Ehari Doveresa, Herald of Rebellion

The chaja are a people that have had their history stolen from them. Whatever
they were in antiquity, generations of enslavement by the shuddeni have
systematically erased any awareness of their past. To this day, the shuddeni
still enslave a significant proportion of the chaja population, using them as
labourers, bodyguards, servants, and gladiators, at least in their own
underground cities.

While the shuddeni claim otherwise, enslaved chaja brought to the surface
frequently escape and are rarely recaptured. Those confined underground too
often slip their oppressors' watch and vanish into the tunnels. These often
linger nearby despite the danger, helping others escape, smuggling them and
their families to the surface. Few other of the major races are truly aware of
the depth of the plight of the chaja, making them a people largely forced to
save themselves.

On the surface, the chaja disapora spreads across the continent; they forge
communities in large cities and form local cultures based around the lives
they forge for themselves. At best they are seen by others as similar to the
alatharya: good at heavy lifting and breaking heads, but not much else. Seeds
of resentment toward these daily, banal cruelties have spread deep roots
through their communities. A sense of self-reliance and wariness toward
outsiders is common in such enclaves.

While human-devised metrics of gauging intelligence deem the chaja somewhat
dim, few other peoples have been so forced to carve out a place for themselves
in societies that do not wish to yield it.

Chaja range between six and eight feet tall, with pale, greyish skin that tans
under sunlight. While most have milk-white eyes, chaja whose families have
spent multiple generations on the surface have adapted somewhat, and might be
any colour, albeit pale. Their hair is slick and oily, ranging from white to
black. On the surface many dye their hair vividly, in defiance of their
colourless underground life. Their bodies are muscular and quick, but they
have no capacity for magic now, if they ever did.

Many chaja have a deep, virulent hatred of shuddeni; the most extremist of
those often find their way to Kor Thrandir, who share similar sentiments.

There are some who have been so thoroughly brutalized by the shuddeni that
they do not consider escape; they may serve loyally for all their lives and
even resent those who leave this life behind. These exist in a cruelly-
constructed state of learned helplessness, conditioned by the shuddeni to
participate in their own oppression. Few such will realize this is the case,
but the myth of the freed chaja returning to the 'safety' of their master is
largely that, spread by shuddeni themselves amongst the chaja population.